A Teens Point of View of What Her Father Thinks of Cell Phones

An ongoing joke between me and my father is my cell phone. Every time I am on my phone, whether I am playing Candy Crush, scrolling through my photo roll, or Googling something random on my mind, my dad will come up to me and ask “Who are you texting?”. Although I am known in my family as the ‘texting addict’ with over 1,000 texts sent each month, I am a teen and like to talk to my friends and family. Every time my dad ask me this, I get a bit irritated. Why is it that every time my phone is sitting out, he assumes I am texting? And not even that, but when I answer truthfully, my father asks again to make sure it’s not a boy.

I understand that teens nowadays have a very free life when on their devices. With the freedom of internet, social media, and communication, we are free to say, read, and look at whatever we want. It can be scary for adults, especially fathers, to let this next generation be so exposed to the world. “Back in my day”, my dad always says, “we would go play in the woods and come back for lunch and dinner.” Even back in the 1970’s in Iowa, it was the “all American childhood”; playing outside all day. But now, it almost seems as if electronics have taken over. It may be a large part of childhood for the next few years.

If you face this issue in your household, please share a similar or different story of how this goes down in your home.